Posted
by
CowboyNeal
on Friday May 04, 2007 @07:45PM
from the moving-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Robert Love who was the Chief Architect of Novell's Linux Desktop has resigned today. Robert is a prominent Linux kernel hacker, author and journalist in the Linux community.
His blog doesn't specify why he resigned, but after colleague and friend Jeremy Allison's departure from Novell in protest of the Microsoft-Novell deal, this might be the latest fallout from it."

The speculation in the submission is unnecessary. Regardless of my personal feelings about the Novell-Microsoft deal, this looks like an opportunistic attempt to re-open an old debate. That's not fair to anyone actually involved.

Maybe, maybe not, but if anything looks and smells like an 800-lb elephant in the living room, the Novell/MSFT deal has to rank up there pretty high.

Dunno why Love just up and left... could be a better opportunity, could've been retirement, could've been disgust at the company culture... could be that he was sick and tired of having to go to Salt Lake City once a year for Brainshare and put up with the local 3.2% beer. Who knows?

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the/. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)

Or maybe the editorial staff on slashdot is showing their bias by posting what's blatantly unfounded speculation with no original source, thus trying to reinforce that such speculation is "rather persistant". It's like posting another story on Jack Thompson and violent video games and concluding that "the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed by the gaming industry". Sorry, if you have a crackpot theory it's still a crackpot theory even if you repeat it often enough.

Either way, the fact that such speculation is obvious and rather persistant is a good indication that maybe it does need to be re-assessed (not necessarily by the/. crowd, but certainly by Novell...)

Or maybe the editorial staff on slashdot is showing their bias by posting what's blatantly unfounded speculation with no original source, thus trying to reinforce that such speculation is "rather persistant".

So let's remove any possibility of bias:

Novell pays MSFT a shedload of money, ostensibly to get MSFT to help w/ Win32/64 app interoperability and sell a few SuSE licenses.

Ballmer almost immediately starts mouthing on about Linux and how it allegedly "infringes intellectual property".

Novell's response wasn't (at least IMHO) much more than a weak 'do not...'

Ballmer continues bull-horning the original point unabated, pointing at SuSE and claiming the money was to help insure against vague future threat

[Big blurb of why Microsoft is planning do to evil with the MSFT/Novell deal]Perhaps they do, I certainly don't think they did it out of the goodness of their hearts. But there is still absolutely nothing to suggest Robert Love's resignation has anything at all to do with that deal, which is the unfounded speculation here. Trying to make it look like the 800-lb invisible elephant in the room is at fault regardless, is a lot like talking up violent video games after a violent killing spree where there's no e

What does the Microsoft Novel deal do that is just so damn bad? I mean seriously, Look at what Novel has done with it and tell me what is so bad.I bet nothing can be said that is bad with the MS Novel deal without imagining something that hasn't happened. For crying out loud, Why cannot we just take novel for what they have done instead of what some kook think they might do. This is nonsense and contains more fud and misinformation then anything else.

In what instance have they tried to circumvent the GPLv2? They haven't!

You can name any actual instance were they have done anything of the sorts, even with the GPLv3 minus the "no deals with microsoft" clause, they haven't attempted to violate it. What you inferring is that people think they might be able to try to do this. And in a time were so many people are judged guilty until proven innocent, I thought I would have seen better from the GPL crowd.

Are you inferring this is Novel claiming it has never violated the GPL or never intends to or are you offering this as some evidence to a violation.

I hope it is the previous because it doesn't violate anything in the GPL or mean the Novel has done anything personally that doesn't require a vivid imagination and the assumption they could do something in the future.

Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which may have been used by microsoft, but since the "infringing" ip is never identified, Novell may in fact be keeping money for ip that rightfully belongs to other linux community developers.

You got that wrong,Novell gets (real) money for "intellectual property" (ip) in linux which Microsoft has placed a claim on. And yes, nothing has ever been identified and as far as we know, the claims are completely false. But so does redhat and so does Mandriva, Debian and so on. So there is no difference there. Your last fact illustrates that point well. But your facts also point out how Balmer said everything and neglect to mention Novel denied it from the start. It also goes on to state novel may have,

What part of the GPL says I have to give money to anyone else? I don't even have to give the source to anyone who isn't my customer.

Point were it forbids this in the exiting GPL or actually read the licensing before spreading fud. The GPLv3 doesn't even stop this from happening. You seem to be sold on the merits of licensing, have you even read the GPL license?

Novel hasn't gotten any money for alleged ip in linux either. So what is you point. Novel has denied from the start that there isn't any IP in linux that belongs to Microsoft.This deal is about creating programs that can be used along side GPLed products that make inter-operation of Novel's products and microsoft's product easier and more fulfiling with the consumer. This is no different then Mandriva or Redhat including programs in their pay for distributions and certifying they have a right to use them. T

Mine was. Before the deal I used SuSe exclusively. I knew that it wasn't a purely free OS, what with YAST and Adobe and NVIDIA binary RPMs being sent along with it...but it was at least MS-free which is exactly what I liked about it.

I switched to Fedora. It wasn't easy to set up, but I have that nice, clean MS-free feeling again when I turn on my machine. Now that I have struggled through the hard part, I like Fedora better than Suse. I won't be switching back.

To call the speculation injustice trivializes injustice. I don't see how something so mild and predictable is unfair to Love. On the contrary, it could easily grant him a little extra (speculative, to be sure) respect from afar.

Moreover, not seeing it as unfair to Novell does not even require any particular enmity toward it. It's just another corporation, after all.

Company A does something of which certain other people disapprove. Employee B leaves said business several months later and gives no public reason for the departure. Anonymous spectator C says "Employee B left because of Company A's action of course!"

Is this not FUD? Is FUD fair? Perhaps it's only unfair to a small degree, but that's shallow justification.

Come on--the summary mentioned Allison as a precedent, could have mentioned recent previous disgruntled resigners, and qualified Love's motivation with "might."Perhaps it is some mild FUD towards Novell. If the target of FUD is behaving badly on the whole, I cannot see how FUD towards it is unfair. Maybe you can, but I think that requires more slack towards Novell than I think it deserves.

To be more precise, I hold above these specific events the importance of the four freedoms that the GPL tries to promot

Perhaps it is some mild FUD towards Novell. If the target of FUD is behaving badly on the whole, I cannot see how FUD towards it is unfair.

If FUD is not universally unfair--if FUD is acceptable when applied against a group or individual with whom you disagree--then from a certain perspective, Microsoft FUD against Linux or F/OSS is completely fair.

I don't accept that. Therefore, however much I may disagree with a particular group or individual, I believe FUD against that group or individual is unfair

Certainly I hope to have a sounder basis for my disagreement than FUD.

Can you point out where FUD is the basis for someone's disagreement with Novell?

Suppose you are a cop who disagrees with a hostage taker who threatens to kill ten people. Do you think FUD that will fool the bad guy into slipping up and being stopped is unfair? Your disagreement with him is quite sound in this case, and, yes, his FUD is grossly unfair; indeed, it is his FUD that ensures your disagreement here. OTOH, the basis of yo

The FAQ on the Novell/Microsoft deal is filled with business doublespeak, but one sentence of it strikes me: "Novell will continue to promote Linux as the premier platform for core infrastructure and application services." It strikes me because it is the only sentence stating what Novell will continue doing after the agreements. It's a feel good sentence, sounding like "oh, Novell's continuing Linux development," but really explicitly stating the parts of Linux it will continue on. Considering that Novell was actively developing the Linux Desktop, and Robert Love was "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell" [wikipedia.org], it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue.

I rather view it in terms of Suse consumer confidence. Everybody was upset with the rough methods the Ximian guys corrupted our Suse product and pushed for immature solutions. There are other Ximian guys SuSe customers want to leave.

My feelings are quite the contrary.

....It strikes me because it is the only sentence stating what Novell will continue doing after the agreements. It's a feel good sentence, sounding like "oh, Novell's continuing Linux development," but really explicitly stating the parts of Linux it will continue on. Considering that Novell was actively developing the Linux Desktop, and Robert Love was "Chief Architect, Linux Desktop, at Novell" [wikipedia.org], it's apparent that the Linux Desktop is one of the items Novell will NOT continue.

Exactly. A blunt attempt to annoy Suse customers by enforcing their Gnome stuff on the users. SuSe had a groupware product, what did the Ximian guys do: Develop their own. SuSe had a working package management system. What did the Ximian guys do? Mess it up with RedCarpet. SuSe

When Jeremy Allison resigned from Novell, the fact of his resignation was known by the public for some weeks before his last official day as a Novell employee. Jeremy had to refrain from doing or saying certain things until he was actually off the payroll - for example he did not sign the petition [techp.org] until then. Love is probably in the same situation right now: known to have resigned, but still to some degree responsible to the company.

We might not get to know how Love feels about the Novell-Microsoft agreement for some time, and should not make assumptions. It may well be that his strongest feelings are about wanting to continue to develop a great desktop, and that Novell might not be such a great place to do that any longer. That's all he mentioned in his blog.

That said, the agreement is a big honkin' elephant in Novell's living room that is not going away. It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.

It's unfair to ask people not to speculate, we just have to make it clear that such speculations are vapors until Love himself comments.

Suppose his reasons are none of our business, and he never shares. What use is it to speculate (other than my speculation that the anonymous story submitter wanted to kick the Novell pariah yet again)?

Second of all even if it was unfair so what? Why does a corporation (or two) need protections from unfair treatment on slashdot.

It's not a person, it has no feelings, it's a corporation. It doesn't care about you or any other human being except it's shareholders. It only cares about making money and giving it to it's shareholders.

A case could be made that the speculation was unfair to Robert Love, and I guess I agree with that, after having thought about it more. However, I agree with you that the original statement--that it's unfair to all parties-- is false. Corporations are people without a conscience that do not deserve fair treatment.

Regarding my personal feelings towards the Microsoft-Novell deal, I say good for him. If Robert wants to dispute the obvious, maybe he can make his 262nd blog entry clearer. I say his leaving is clear enough.

Not 100% sure if it's fallout from the Novell/MSFT deal or not, but maybe it'll finally get Hoviespan's attention that you simply do not make deals with The Devil and expect everyone to be happy with it?

I can grok the 'foot-in-the-door' theory of getting enough interoperability w/ Windows to make Windows no longer matter (or at least ease customers out of the Windows-only lock-in), but man... he HAD to have seen the 'Plays for Sure' fiasco and figure out that the only real winner in any MSFT-3rdparty deal is MSFT, even if MSFT has to screw the partner(s) to do it.

What is it with this deal that is so bad? I'm talking about what Novel has actually done? So far it has been a bunch of OSS advocated spreading fud and Balmer Throwing chairs to incite the fud slinging.

Novel hasn't done anything wrong outside talking to Microsoft. So what does the deal specifically do that is so bad?

Novel hasn't done anything wrong outside talking to Microsoft. So what does the deal specifically do that is so bad?

In signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

Novell inked a deal with Microsoft that did an end-run around this limitation by agreeing not to sue Novell's customers for patent infringement. This makes a scenario possible in which an unsuspecting company or individual could use GPL software, assuming that they had every right to do so, only to have Microsoft sue them later for breach of patent. As long as they're not Novell customers, MS would be perfectly within their rights to do so.

It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal. But we've known for years now that Microsoft sees the GPL as a threat, and that they are working actively to defeat it using both fair means and foul.

What gets people's knickers in a knot over this deal is the fact that Novell should have known better. They built a major part of their business strategy on the hard work of the FOSS community, and contributed a lot to it, too. But now they've gone and exploited an inherent weakness in the current version of the GPL, and damaged FOSS in general for short-sighted, selfish reasons. In effect, they're poisoning the very well they drink from.

Needless to say, a great many people in the FOSS world, including RMS, Bruce Perens and a lot of others who know a thing or two about this stuff, have castigated Novell for being remarkably stupid. And a lot of us here on Slashdot agree.

It doesn't matter if the license is $600, $6 million, or $0.00000006. Regardless of the cost, if it's non-zero it kills the GPL licensing model. Why? Because no matter what, the patent license would be non-transferable. This means that third parties wouldn't be able to exercise their redistribution rights under the GPL, because they wouldn't be allowed to also transfer the patent license.

Make no mistake: this, just like with SCO, is another Microsoft attempt to destroy Linux. The value of Linux is in the G

Were they to do that I would switch from thinking of them as evil to thinking of them as sneaky. And I still wouldn't want to do business with them (beyond that $0.50 license).Unfortunately, MS wrote into the contract that they can cancel it whenever they feel like it. The terms of the contract to not indicate that afte the contract is cancelled, that MS still won't sue Novell's customers.

The public terms of the contract are of no benefit to anyone except MS. There are a lot of smooth phrases that emula

n signing this deal with Microsoft, Novell (note spelling) has deliberately and disingenuously circumvented one of the key elements that ensures the continuity of the GNU General Public License, version 2. The GPL states that you cannot encumber the license with additional terms (patent limitations, for example), because that would work against the the principle of the FSF's four freedoms: to study, copy, modify and redistribute software.

Write shorter posts: responding to such long points and failing to cover all your points implies that we agree with the rest, instead of needing eight hours of sleep before being able to finish the reply.Second, to take a specific example, have you ever tried to fork and maintain a fork of anything critical like gcc, emacs, make, vi, less, gzip, or the Linux kernel? And if the main codeline goes to GPLv3, you'll have to do clean-room development to keep it GPLv2. That makes it far, far more expensive to do

There was so much that needed said. Thats the reason for the long posts.But no I haven't tried to for anything myself. But you see, they don't have to upgrade anything, they just need to to continue to work with their product. So it isn't the same as devloping everything from scratch. The Linux Kernel will Stay GPLv2. Too much has already been said on that matter to think otherwise. GCC and the GNU tool chain already works so there isn't much to do there unless you change what your working with. These compa

Then say what you need to say in separate posts. This is why books have chapters, and you went through so many distinct issues, all of them at least subtlely skewed, that it's difficult to address them as a whole.You are handwaving over the engineering and legal issues of maintaining a fork. Almost every single sentence of your claims betrays this. I'll take your second paragraph, line-by-line, as an example:

This is the problem with your whole book of material: the "they can just fork" approach to Novell's situation betrays a deep lack of familiarity with genuine problems and you glossed it over. To sum up: forking Novell's own copy of GPL material to preserve its usability under the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement creates unmaintainable forks of core materials.The Linux kernel is nearly a strawman in this: even if Linus manages to keep its core in GPLv2 (and I'm not sure he can for more than a few years, but

This is the problem with your whole book of material: the "they can just fork" approach to Novell's situation betrays a deep lack of familiarity with genuine problems and you glossed it over. To sum up: forking Novell's own copy of GPL material to preserve its usability under the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement creates unmaintainable forks of core materials.

I don't think it will be all that difficult to maintain a fork that is usable to what makes them money. And I seriously don't think Novel will be d

There is no subversion. First, it would require someone to falsely place something into a GPLed work or GPL something that is patented. Novel has never, I repeat never attempted to do this. They have never indicated they would do this. And they have specifically stated they won't do this. Again were is the problem?

Let me paint a picture for you. You've got a group of sheep out grazing in a field somewhere. Then you've got a couple of shepherds. (Perens and Stallman, in the analogy) The shepherds start w

And there are specific instances of the problem. Jeremy Allison's extensive work with Samba was something Microsoft *needed* to spike, by whatever means possible, since most of the network file system drives and external storage devices we're seeing today are Linux and especially Samba based. That's not a market Microsoft can leave alone: it keeps people away from the license and hardware over-burdened Windows server market.Jeremy continuing in Samba work under the Novell/Microsoft patent agreement put Samb

This line of reasoning has no merit behind it. Are you assumeing that Jeremy would contribute code that he knows full well covers part of microsoft's IP? I doubt this would ever happen and I seriously doubt that is could from past experiences.Just because your afraid something might happen in no way means that it would or could. Even if Novel, Samba or Jeremy included code, he would have to pass all rights he give their users to downstream users. Even under the existing GPL. It specifically says so in it. S

It stretches belief to imagine that Microsoft didn't know they were subverting the essence - if not the letter - of the GPL with this deal.

This also however is precisely the point. The "community" is gradually becoming more and more about vague, unwritten, subjective emotional abstractions than anything near as precise as the letter of the law. For anyone wanting to develop/distribute GPL licensed software now, it's no longer enough to merely fulfill the precise written legal requirements of the license.

Don't make me laugh. Novell hire far, far more open source developers than Canonical, contrary to what Shuttleworth states in a recent interview with him [slashdot.org]. My favourite one there is "Google uses Ubuntu on all of their developer desktops" (emphasis mine). That is outright false, as even Shuttleworth himself has said [markshuttleworth.com].
Soon Ubuntu will not even need users -- it will run completely on hype.

I disagree, for two reasons.(1) You label those who have started to use Ubuntu as people without judgement? Well, sorry, I don't consider myself *that* clueless. I've used Slackware (since it came on floppies), SuSE since v5 or so, RH from when they started, Mandrake, enfin, to cut a long story short, I experiment. And Ubuntu has gone from nothing to my preferred desktop, with Fedora and SuSE running a close 2nd (although I'm not very impressed with OpenSuSE, and the MS tie in makes it less likely I'll e

I do not see where I said (1), so I'm not sure what you're responding to.
As for (2), Shuttleworth may indeed be a lovely person in real life. The rest of us can only form our opinions of him on what he shows to the public -- what he says on forums and interviews and the like. He has clearly shown himself to be of debatable decorum (the "open letter" to SuSE developers, for example, and the untruthful statements in interviews).
It call it hyped because (having used it, of course) I see nothing intuitive or

This reminds me of the HP/Compaq merger: At first HP said they would integrate the superior technologies from Compaq/DEC's Tru64 Unix into HP-UX; two years later (or less) most of the Tru64 workforce was gone and the "superior technologies" were jettisoned. And where is HP/UX now?

Similarly, if all the Linux hackers leave Novell/SUSE, who exactly are Novell going to employ to develop the distribution? Not many people looking to make a good career move are going to man a ship whose crew says she's sinking.

It won't be hard to find developers. They just won't have the experience or insights into the systems as the one leaving. But this might be a good deal in the end, It can allow more things to move in different directions and possibly in better directions.And don't think for a minute that it won't be easy to find developers. When everyone is claiming all the jobs are going over seas, I seriously doubt that some starving outsourced programmer is going to get all ethical and pass up a full time job. He is goin

There is nothing hidden about the resignations. They are nothing but people leaving for Ideological reasons except we don't have a confirmed reason for Mr love. It isn't because Novel is a bad employer or anything. This won't hamper anything in the process of putting food in the table or paying the rent. Developers would be more then happy to jump in a fill the gap. Some might even gain fame and fortune by doing some things better or different enough to solve some problems. Nothing in opensource is so impor

It's even more reminiscent of the Compaq/DEC merger. Compaq acquired DEC and then went to all of the Tru64 Unix customers and declared to them: "Hi there. We're going to migrate you to Windows NT." The vast majority of them replied, "Fuck you, we're going to Sun." By the time Compaq realized that enterprise admins will give up Unix when you pry it from their cold dead fingers, it was already way too late, and Sun (and later, Linux) ran away with Compaq/DEC's uni

Novell is already a subsidiary of IBM in everything but name -- see my article on www.abend.org. Long-term, Novell is cruising for a buyout, and the only activities that are happening at Novell are either to please IBM, or to get ready for the buyout.
In addition, has anyone considered how bad a FOSS person feels working for IBM execs? Well, 5 of Novell's top 8 execs, plus a boatload of others, are ex-IBM. IBM has never been know for open standards, and in fact, their logo is next to the definition of t

Surely you misspelled "Microsoft," right? I've read your article, and most of it makes sense, but it really seems like Novell is either aiming for Microsoft to buy them out instead of IBM, or at least for MS and IBM to fight over the UNIX rights (wouldn't that be the battle of the century!).

Nahh. IBM already has sidestepped the UNIX licensing problems by pursuing Linux, and learned the hard way ho9w to protect it from ludicrous and farudulent claims. Microsoft does *not* want the name UNIX mentioned anywhere near them: it's key to their marketing that they not do direct comparisons or admit its legitimacy.

After seeing both this comment and the vitriol on the story about him [slashdot.org], I'm amazed that Miguel is still willing to work to make the OSS community better. Maybe I'll turn out to be wrong one day, but until then, I will appreciate the work that he does as a strong community leader for the Mono project.
Put differently, I don't want to see Mr. de Icaza become another Slashdot joke. He doesn't deserve it for what he's done.

I am rather cross with you for lending your verbal support to Novell/Ximian's ignoble agenda to push KDE out of its well deserved and much loved position as the default desktop of the SuSE distribution. Which as you will recall, sparked a veritable customer revolt. How arrogant of you and those others involved. No, contrary to your claim [rlove.org], Ximian's offering is the second best Linux desktop, in my opinion. To be honest, I find Ximian's desktop downright irritating, clumsy, limited, buggy and reall

No. Novell is pushing for GNOME in the Enterprise Desktop they choose. (i) this has NOTHING to do with openSUSE (where more KDE developers are working on it than any other distribution), and (ii) KDE is still fully supported on the enterprise desktop. Now remind me what your point is again?

I am rather cross with you for lending your verbal support to Novell/Ximian's ignoble agenda to push KDE out of its well deserved and much loved position as the default desktop of the SuSE distribution.

And he needs to care about your opinion...why, exactly?

If I was going to speculate myself about his resignation, I'd wonder whether he resigned for his own reasons, or whether seeing as Jeremy Allison resigned, he was pressured by the "community" to do the same thing.

Ubuntu innovate very little compared to openSUSE/Novell on the desktop. So when you're talking about the better _desktop_ you cannot talk about the community; that would arguably fit into _distribution_; so please, once you get out of the Ubuntu fanboy hype, you might see things a little more clearly.
SLED is also marketed on the enterprise, which has a FAR larger community than Ubuntu has in any enterprise. Please don't even try to tell me that Ubuntu is even remotely ready for the enterprise.

Novell's headquarters hasn't been in Utah for several years now. After the merger with Cambridge Technology Partners, the combined firm set up its official HQ at the latter's Waltham, MA location.

It is true that presidential candidate W. Mitt Romney has built a Mormon Temple (the only one northeast of Maryland; a temple is much bigger than a normal church) near his house in Belmont, a town adjacent to Waltham. But other than Mitt and his many kids, there aren't a lot of Mormons near Novell HQ.